Monday, 23 December 2013

Doctor Who: Missing Patrick Troughton episodes could air on BBC4

The BBC has the right - and in some senior quarters the desire - to show the nine recently-discovered Patrick TroughtonDoctor Who episodes on BBC television, RadioTimes.com understands.

The BBC has confirmed that it has the right to air both The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World
in the UK decades after they were first broadcast. And if they do get
aired they will almost certainly be shown on BBC4, senior sources have
confirmed.

However RadioTimes.com understands that a decision would be made in
conjunction with BBC Worldwide, which is masterminding their commercial
release on iTunes where they were put on sale in October.

However senior sources have said that the BBC has not ruled out
airing the episodes on free to air TV eventually, although no time frame
has been decided on and no formal decision has been made.

If it does go ahead it would be likely to be some time after the DVD release, according to sources.

When asked about BBC TV’s interests in airing the episodes, a senior
BBC executive told RadioTimes.com that no decision had been made but
that if BBC television were to obtain the rights they would almost
certainly air on BBC4 and not on BBC2.

A Worldwide spokesman said that the “BBC has the rights to show them if they wanted to”.

The BBC could not confirm the nature of the deal with Phillip Morris,
director of the Television International Enterprises Archive, who found
the missing material or whether a TV broadcast would require more money
paid to him.

Both parties have also refused to divulge whether more missing material has been found by Morris.